


What a guy

by FreshMangoJuice



Category: Red Dwarf
Genre: Gen, One Shot, Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-04
Updated: 2015-07-04
Packaged: 2018-04-07 17:13:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,072
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4271382
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FreshMangoJuice/pseuds/FreshMangoJuice
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Io House was burning. Frightened children huddled inside; trapped behind the big front doors that wouldn’t open. The smoke billowed upwards from the school in great noxious clouds. Then suddenly, through that dense fog, it appeared: Wildfire!</p>
            </blockquote>





	What a guy

Io House was burning. Frightened children huddled inside, trapped behind the big front doors that wouldn’t open. The smoke billowed upwards from the school in great noxious clouds. Then suddenly, through that dense fog, it appeared: _Wildfire_!

As the sleek craft dipped low over the roof of the school, a figure vaulted gracefully out of the cockpit. He hurtled down through the skylight, showering the people below with shards of glass. Landing in the centre of the crowd by the door, he gave his auburn hair a gentle flick and flashed the dishevelled students and teachers a grin.

“Mind if I drop in?”

The ripple went around the crowd. It was Ace Rimmer! They were saved.

“The doors won’t open, sir! We can’t get out,” one small boy coughed.

“Hey there, son,” Ace tutted, cuffing the boy’s chin, “never fear when Ace is here.”

With one fluid movement, he drew out a blaster and shot at the keypad by the door, startling the teacher who’d been entering the override codes. The keypad fizzed and whined while Ace forced the door open with a powerful kick. Students streamed out around him, whooping and cheering with relief to be out of the building.

The teacher ran over from the keypad to Ace’s side. She grabbed his arm, blue eyes looking up at him wide with fear.

“Ace, I –”

“Thanks for the help sweet cheeks,” he crooned in his smooth deep voice. “You know, I think I might be able to find something else for you to help me out with later,” he winked.

“There are still children up in the East Wing, Ace! The door system’s malfunctioned. They’re stuck up there. I think Mr Phillips is inside too. Ace, you’ve got to save them!”

* * *

 

Humphrey Phillips hurried through the kitchens. There was no way up the East stairs now but there was a service stairwell round the back of the cafeteria. The elderly head teacher wheezed. Flames were all around, the kitchens were filled with smoke; he didn’t have much time. Just one more door… a small blast rocked the room as one of the ovens exploded. He crouched, shielding his face just in time. When he looked up, he saw a huge fridge had fallen, sealing off the door ahead.

“No!”

He stumbled upright and pushed at the blockage desperately but it didn’t budge. Just then, a shadow fell across the door. He turned to see a man silhouetted against the flames.

“Rimmer?” the old man whispered, hardly daring to believe his luck.

“The very same,” Ace replied.

“Rimmer we have to get through, the boys…”

“I know,” Ace replied calmly.

Humphrey continued to push at the fridge. Was it his imagination or was it starting to move? He called out to Ace over his shoulder.

“I’ve loaded an override programme onto this key card in my hand. Once we get up to the East Wing we can use it to open an emergency route down to the grounds. Can you move this fridge out the way?”

“Easy as falling off a long cylinder of wood,” Ace confirmed but he didn’t move. He took a cigar from an inside pocket and began lighting it from a burning counter.

“What are you doing?” Humphrey spluttered, glancing over his shoulder. “We don’t have time!”

“I remember the custard they used to serve here,” Ace said, puffing leisurely at the cigar.

He must have lost his mind. “ _What_?”

“The custard. Thick and sweet with unidentifiable lumps in it. Served on Fridays to year 3s. Of course I had it two years in a row thanks to you.”

With a last desperate effort, Humphrey managed to push the fridge clear. He half-collapsed, choking on the smoke. Ace strode over and stood between him and the door. What was going on?

“Rimmer, I don’t understand,” Humphrey pleaded. “You’re Ace, the hero…”

“Oh that,” Ace laughed unpleasantly. “Between you and me, it’s not hard to do a bit of jumping about and shooting stuff when you’re a virtually indestructible hologram. Nothing that would ever actually put me in danger, mind. Any actual peril and I’m out of there faster than a cartoon roadrunner on steroids. But people are always falling over themselves to sacrifice themselves on my behalf, which is terribly convenient.”

Mr Phillips was frozen in horror, “You’re a fraud? A charlatan?”

“I am what you made me, headmaster,” Ace continued, smiling whilst flames roared around him. “I suppose it all stems from you keeping me back a year at school. Remember that? The humiliation... being the tallest boy in the class by a clear foot. I learned a valuable lesson then, something I’ve never forgotten. No matter how hard I had worked, no matter how desperately I had wanted to succeed, _it hadn’t made a smegging bit of difference_. Despite everything, you’d still kept me back. That’s how I knew: it doesn’t matter what you do, all that matters is who gets the credit in the end. And I make damn sure it’s Ace Rimmer.”

Mr Philips took a shaky breath, his eyes watering from the smoke. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. But the children. Please. Help me.”

“No, I rather think not. You see, no one ever helped me. So, I’ve learned to help myself.”

With those words, Ace tossed aside the cigar and helped himself to the key card that had fallen next to the headteacher.

“Don’t worry, I’ll make good use of this,” he said, waving the card. “Clever of me to have worked out the override codes and to have rescued those kiddies. But poor, foolish Mr Phillips. So sorry I couldn’t save him. What a terrible tragedy that fire was.”

Dark suspicion flickered in the headmaster’s eyes and he started scrambling backwards.

“The fire and the doors… both at once. You didn’t? You couldn’t! Not even you would be capable of –“

Ace grabbed the man by his lapels and pulled him up, his handsome face distorted with an ugly scowl. “You have _no idea_ what I’m capable of.”

Ace punched the teacher hard in the jaw, knocking him backwards into a pile of food crates filled with fish. The headmaster of Io House felt blood oozing down the side of his head. He lay there on the edge of consciousness amongst the smoke and the flames.

Ace’s face was sneering, devoid of mercy. “Smoke me a kipper.” And then he was gone.

**Author's Note:**

> The possibility of Dark!Ace appeals to me for a number of reasons:  
> a) It would be relatively easy (right?) for a more unscrupulous Rimmer to take advantage of his dimensional counterpart's intergalactic fame.  
> b) One of the nicest things about the real Ace is how willing he is to go uncredited for his good deeds (though the people who matter tend to know it was him anyway...) What if that was reversed and he went all Professor Lockhart on us?  
> c) It's at least a possibility that bullied little Arnold grew up to be a bully himself.  
> Hence this fic!


End file.
